


JINGLE ON THE ROCKS

by deliveryservice



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28100694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliveryservice/pseuds/deliveryservice
Summary: Saint Indech's day brings competition and war at the halls of Garreg Mach.Dimitri swears it started as an accident.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14
Collections: SofA Lite





	JINGLE ON THE ROCKS

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chickadeequill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickadeequill/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [chickadeequill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickadeequill/pseuds/chickadeequill) in the [sofa2020lite](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sofa2020lite) collection. 



> > **Prompt:**
>> 
>> If it's a fic, any length is fine. Please, no heavy gore.
> 
> saint indech's day is what i hc'd to be fe3h's equivalent of christmas! i hope you enjoy your gift, happy holidays. ♥️ 

LATER, DIMITRI WOULD SWEAR IT WAS AN ACCIDENT.

“It was an accident!” Dimitri yells as he sprints as fast as his winter boots could take him. Edelgard is hot on his heels. She wields a snowball as big as her face like it’s a javelin. 

“You ruined my coat!” Edelgard doesn’t shriek, because she is Lady Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir of the Adrestian Empire, who just doesn’t make noises like shrieks, or shrilly screams. Still, she sounds as indignant as a future empress can get, as if she’s shouting bloody murder without the murder. 

Her rage is justifiable. Edelgard’s coat, suitably made for winter, had been a brilliant, polished red. Now a wet spot in the shape of a ball ruins its ornate features at their center. Design aside, it must be cold, to have a wet coat - slight as the damp spot is.

“I did not mean to throw it!” Dimitri attempts to justify himself. He runs into a dead end. Edelgard approaches him slowly, menacingly; he raises his hands in front of his chest to shield himself and closes his eyes, awaiting the final blow. 

Something cold and wet meets his chest. Dimitri cracks an eye open to see a triumphant Edelgard, a cat’s smug smirk on her lips. Dimitri does what he can: He sighs and pushes down the ball of sloshy snow from his clothes (already wet) to the floor. 

“Edelgard,” he sighs. He pauses; at a loss of words. He hadn’t thought that far on what to say after mentioning her name.

“That was my  _ only _ coat that has arrived from Enbarr,” Edelgard explains her pettiness. Dimitri’s jaw clenches and unclenches.

“I already apologized,” Dimitri says, maybe a little pathetically.

“Sorry doesn’t fix my coat.” Edelgard stares up at him with a frown. She must hate that she has to look up.

“Look out, your highnesses!” 

Dimitri and Edelgard wear matching gapes when snowballs hit both of their arms, clunky and cold. Claude stands several steps behind them; he’s cackling with even more snow coating his gloves. “Oh man, you should’ve seen the looks on your faces!”

Claude continues laughing, his belly too jolly with his latest feat. Dimitri and Edelgard, equals in their misery, share A Look.

This is how the battle begins.

::

“Hubert,” Edelgard whispers, “can you make it discrete?”

Hubert von Vestra, Man of Mystique and Mystery, Walking Demon Himself, does a cackle that is most discrete. “Of course, Lady Edelgard.” Hubert von Vestra, Man of Mystique and Mystery, Walking Demon Himself, does not cackle as he raises his hand (subtly) at the Blue Lions’ table. With a whisper of a spell, smoky tendrils raise from his fingertips. The tendrils move like tentacles, picking up a salt container, spilling some into Dimitri’s morning tea.

Edelgard has a hard time trying not to giggle.

Trying not to giggle, or laugh, or even crack a smile, turns impossible when Dimitri makes an odd, confused face at his drink. He proceeds to let Dedue try it for him: and Dedue, usually stony-faced and impassive, grimaces. He might be physically stopping himself from spitting it out.

Edelgard loses it.

::

Less amusing is when she can barely walk to class without having to do some impressive, spot-of-the-moment acrobatics to evade the arrows of snow (harmless, just very annoying) Claude keeps aiming her way. Hilda supplies him with more arrows whenever he lulls in his shots (a sign he’s running out), and what results is a nearly-endless stream of flying snow.

“Should I silence him, Lady Edelgard?” Hubert has taken the incentive to act as Edelgard’s meat shield. His uniform is soaked from the ice that has melted into his clothes. There’s a look in his eyes that promises pain. Against herself, Edelgard feels a spark of pity for Claude, who is still laughing on the second floor - blissfully unaware of Hubert’s reckoning.

“We’ll pay him back in other ways, Hubert.” Edelgard pats his arm and all-but-wrestles him to class. “Let’s not commit manslaughter just yet.”

::

Their alliance is a tentative, shaky one.

“You poured salt into my tea,” Dimitri accuses, not looking the slightest bit pleased.

See? Tentative and shaky.

“Technically,” Edelgard points out, “Hubert did it.”

“It was  _ salt _ .”

Edelgard waves him off. “Don’t be a baby, I could’ve poured in laxatives.” Dimitri’s face actually goes green. Edelgard is only mildly concerned - he could’ve handled it. It’s not like the laxative would’ve  _ killed _ him. “So: Claude is a problem.”

The corner of Dimitri’s lip twitches into the smallest frown. “He is,” he admits this begrudgingly, like he’s selling out a friend. Maybe he is. If he’s double-crossing, Edelgard will pour salt into all of the Blue Lions’ morning tea. “I don’t know how he did it, but he hung up mistletoe by the Blue Lions’ classroom this morning.” He doesn’t sound very happy about this.

Edelgard raises a lone brow, silently telling him to go on.

“Sylvain,” Dimitri says, the single word explaining everything.

“Ah.” Edelgard gets it now. “He shot  _ snow arrows _ at me. I had to use Hubert as my shield,” she shares, the slightest trill of hysteria bleeding red into her sentence. Edelgard leans forward in her seat and whispers, with all the brewings of a conspiracy, “We can’t let him get away with this.”

“What do you propose?” Dimitri asks carefully. He looks at Edelgard with suspicion, but he doesn’t look like he’s raring to stand up and leave at any second - it’s a positive improvement. Edelgard had brought out her best bergamot blend for this meeting; had it gone to waste, the full weight of her revenge would’ve gone to Claude  _ and _ Dimitri both.

“Who’s the sneakiest in your house? I have a plan.”

“There’s Ashe,” Dimitri offers hesitantly. He’s not sure if he should be worried for Ashe, considering Edelgard’s wicked grin.  _ Nothing will go wrong, this is Edelgard, _ he attempts to reassure himself. 

It doesn’t help.

:: 

“I don’t know,” a conflicted Hilda says, staring between a nervous Ashe and the small bag he brings with him. “I just, like, don’t think it’s fair on Claude that you guys are ganging up on him, you know?”

Ashe licks the roof of his mouth. It’s dry. “Please, Hilda,” he pleads, dangling the pouch in front of her eyes. “This has some southern fruit blend and hairclips you won’t find anywhere else - it’s made of Faerghan glass! It’s shiny!” Ashe isn’t doing the best job at advertising Faerghan hairclips, but he’s trying.

The persuasion also shouldn’t matter as much when Hilda hasn’t added a Faerghan hairclip in her collection. “Oh, alright,” she relents. Ashe’s shoulders slump and he exhales, very obviously, through his mouth. “But if anyone asks, I wasn’t in on it!”

Hilda snatches the pouch from Ashe’s hand with enough force it leaves him stumbling over his steps on the floor. She tiptoes to the classroom, trusting Ashe to watch her back in case their target drops by - no one comes. Ashe relaxes fully only once they’ve arrived at their destination; even then, he’s still slightly wary of what could come.

“What are you trying to do, anyway?” Hilda tries to get a good look at Ashe fiddling with the chair. Her neck cranes far enough Ashe can hear a faint crack; Hilda yelps and draws back as if struck. “Nope, nevermind! I don’t want to know!”

It’s because Hilda doesn’t know that she looks just as surprised - and is equally as amused - as everyone else when Claude plops down onto his seat during their next class, only to have the legs of his chair give out, leaving him flopped on the ground.

“Alright, very funny,” Claude says, standing up as he rubs his aching rear, “who’s responsible for this?”

Hilda pointedly avoids his gaze and draws Leonie, of all people, into a conversation about board games.

By dinner, the word of Claude’s incident has spread. Edelgard smirks at him with victory and cunning, raising a toast all the way from her table. Dimitri, Claude finds out, is trying very hard not to look apologetic. “Cheers,” Edelgard mouths.

Claude absently rubs his behind. It’s still a little sore. He plots their downfall with a still-pained smile and a toast of his own.

::

The town near Garreg Mach is small, but it is lively. Little restaurants and bakeries sprinkle the streets, old bookstores competing from inside even older walls. Claude makes it a habit to visit the pub that holds biweekly auctions: Garreg Mach is not so far from a port town, leaving interesting travellers traversing their paths. 

Interesting travellers, Claude has learned, often bring more interesting souvenirs. He’d nearly bid for a baby wyvern once, as interesting as a souvenir can get, only stopping himself upon realizing he lacked the proper space to care for it himself at school.

“Welcome back, Lord von Riegan.” Claude is a familiar face around these halls. He takes a seat in the space that has grown to be his, spreading a leg over the wooden chair, and swirls his drink as he waits for the auction to begin.

Someone takes the seat directly beside his. When Claude tilts his head to see who it is, he sees a head of white hair and a pretty, if a little overly fur-coated, red cloak. “Edelgard,” Claude greets, tightness in his smile.

Nothing personal - but Claude does take another glance at his chair, just to see if it’d been sabotaged again. 

“I don’t use the same tricks twice, Claude.” Edelgard sounds amused. She’s smiling at him; not warmly, but not cold or frigid, or small and forced like her usual ones. “I,” she says, “am not here for a fight.”

“Then why are you here, princess?”

Edelgard bristles at the nickname. Claude’s grin shows his teeth - it’s nice to know the nickname still riles her up. “I’m a bidder.”

“What are you looking for?”

Edelgard shrugs. She undoes the knot over the neckline of her coat, and hangs it over her chair, patting it down after placing it properly. “A Saint Indech’s Day gift for the Professor,” she says, almost bashfully.

“What a coincidence.” Claude barks out a laugh. “I was looking for a gift for them, too.”

Edelgard narrows her eyes, violet sharpening into something more dangerous. “I  _ will _ get them the better present, you know,” she says this like it's a fact.

“You can try,” Claude dares her. His easy, calculated smile meets her thinly veiled glare. “Where’s Mr. Gloomy?”

“Hubert,” she corrects so primly Claude can imagine her smoothening her skirt, “is getting preparations ready for the Black Eagles’ Saint Indech’s Day celebration.”

“Oho?” Claude’s brow raises in interest. “Planning things out so early on?”

“That’s how the Black Eagles excel, Claude,” Edelgard says, “we don’t do things by halves.”

“Neither do the deers.” Claude holds his palms behind his head, forming little finger antlers. His smile is sharp. “Fear the deer, princess.”

Edelgard makes a face that is: a) decidedly unladylike, and b) the best thing Claude has seen her do all year. Before they get the chance to resume their petty squabble, the auction begins. 

It starts out boring, at first. Old artefacts this, foreign desserts that; Claude thinks it’d be more interesting to use the old fork they’re trying to auction as a hairbrush. 

And then: Someone brings up a fishing rod for auction.

Edelgard holds up her sign before the man even finishes his speech.

“I’ll give you five thousand gold.”

Gasps ripple around the room like tiny raindrops. Claude raises his sign too.

“Six thousand.” He directs a charming grin at Edelgard, who rolls her eyes and holds her sign up again. The MC stares between the two of them with eyes nearly bulging out of his sockets.

“Eight thousand!”

“ _ Nine _ thousand.”

“Fifteen.”

“Sixtee—”

“TWENTY—”

In the end, someone else outbids them while they’re too busy glaring at each other; they only realize once the rod has been taken off the stage. When they walk back to the monastery, they are both miserable and empty-handed; but they’re miserable and empty-handed together, and that doesn’t make it better, but it makes things more bearable.

::

“We can’t just let them get the edge without fighting back, Your Highness,” Sylvain says, plainly like it’s a fact, sometime while Edelgard and Claude are off in town in their bidding war.

Dimitri looks up from his book with a tired stare. “What do you suggest, then?”

The Blue Lions have been the most passive in their battle, despite Dimitri’s role, accidental as it was, in starting their proxy war. Dimitri has fought back - although if it was the time Edelgard concocted the plan, did that count? 

His record of fighting back hasn’t been as saddening as his record of getting attacked, however. Dedue has tasted too many salted or spiced teas; most of Dimitri’s coats are constantly damp and ruined; the girls and boys alike in the Blue Lions have been finding increasingly sneaky ways to walk into class, considering the near-impossible to remove mistletoe. 

“How about we get them both back in one fell swoop?” Sylvain suggests. Under the light of the candle, his eyes are golden. They are not the eyes of someone who wants to keep playing nice.

Felix glances at them in interest. He’s been vengeful lately, hacking at the dummies with more ferocity than required, ever since he’d been unwittingly stuck under the mistletoe with Ingrid. (They’d pretended they hadn’t seen anything; otherwise, Felix would have, most likely and literally, shuddered in distaste.) 

“Does it involve fighting them?” Felix drawls. He draws their attention. Sylvain’s grin is slow to come, but it is wide. Dimitri only looks worried. 

Sylvain laughs. It does not sound like it’d bode well for any of them - Dimitri feels the slightest pang of worry for his current enemies. “Oh, it definitely involves fighting them.”

His two childhood friends share a look. Felix’s is wicked and bloodthirsty. Sylvain’s is calculating. Dimitri’s head is heavy: If this isn’t enough to give him a migraine, he doesn’t know what will.

He can’t believe he's encouraging this. Still, Dimitri  _ has _ grown tired of being passive in their winter battle; and he would rather not have Dedue continue sacrificing his tongue for the sake of Dimitri’s tea that he can’t even taste himself. 

“Alright,” Dimitri says, slowly, looking to Sylvain with an expectant stare. Sylvain is beaming like Saint Indech’s Day had come early. “What do you suggest?”

::

Saint Indech’s Eve is supposed to be a night of love; of kindness. It is meant to be a night - or entire day, in some cases - spent with your loved ones, rekindling flames of warmth, just basking in each other’s quiet joy; waiting for the next day to come to finally bring out the presents.

This year, Saint Indech’s Eve in Garreg Mach is different.

Couples and friend groups are nowhere to be seen in the courtyard - or anywhere in the halls. (Sylvain’s network works fast and effectively.) The monastery strangely looks deserted, on  _ Saint Indech’s Eve _ of all times; this is the first sign for Dorothea that something is seriously wrong.

“Why is it so empty?” Dorothea asks, peering around to see if there’s anyone within their distance. There’s not another soul in sight; just her and Mercedes, walking through the ghostly halls.

“I don’t know,” Mercedes lies through her teeth. She knows, of course. This’d been the doing of her own house - and now this is her both doing her task and spending time with a dear friend, though whether or not the dear friend would still see her as one by the end of the day is another question she’d rather not have answered, for now. “Do you think everyone went somewhere without telling us?” Mercedes’ voice wavers. She has always been a terrible liar.

Dorothea, too busy trying to find someone - anyone - misses it. “Of course not!” she says, because why would they go out for a social outing and leave  _ her _ , Dorothea Arnault, one of the most popular students in the monastery, behind? “Oh!” An idea bursts in her mind. She grasps both of Mercedes’ hands in hers, brown eyes sparkling with anticipation. “Do you think they’re planning a surprise Saint Indech’s Eve party? That’s why everyone’s hiding?”

Mercedes opens her mouth to say something. Dorothea will never know what it was the other girl had meant to say, because as soon as Mercedes tries actually saying it, a big snowball strikes - and hits! - Dorothea’s leg.

“And that’s one for the Blue Lions!” someone sings. It’s Annette, wearing the thickest of coats, her face barely visible behind her thick hood. 

The first snowball brings everything to life. Members of the Blue Lions jump out their hiding place, each of them springing forward to try and get a proper hit and members of the other houses - all of the ones most involved in the war were lured out, like what Mercedes’ job had been, and Mercedes gives Dorothea an apologetic smile before she aims another clump of snow at Dorothea’s shoulders. 

Dorothea, now aware of the happenings, gains a brilliant, deadly smile. She dodges in time from Mercedes’ attack and runs to the ground, gathering several weapons of her own. Her first strike hits the both of them at once, and then Dorothea is laughing, running away to find more people to strike.

Mercedes and Annette share a look, a grin, and then they are hot on Dorothea’s heels.

::

“Lysithea, can you use your magic to build a snow fortress for us?” 

The Golden Deer are all gathered together in one place, Lysithea building a makeshift wall of magic to deflect any snowballs thrown their way. Hilda is complaining about her ruined hair while Lorenz is deathly pale, having been snowed in the face - right on the nose. 

Lysithea grits her teeth. “I’m already trying my best keeping them away here!”

Claude pouts and looks to the rest of his house members; his inner circle of them, at least. Hilda is still complaining, and he figures she’ll be out of commission until she manages to fix her hair into something more manageable than the frizzy mess it is right now.

“Alright, Golden Deers.” He claps his hands together and everyone, barring Lysithea who is still shielding them, snaps to attention. “The Blue Lions may have gotten the better of us at first,  _ but _ ! I’m not letting them have their victory. Who’s with me?”

A chorus of cheers rise from his friends, the loudest among them Hilda, who’s shrieking about “I’ll make them pay!” 

Claude looks at the people present and devises a plan. 

“Lysithea’s buying us some time, so why don’t you”—he points at Leonie, Raphael, and Lorenz—“go sneak from the back and stick together to pick off some people? Maybe try getting our current assaulters,” by this he means Ingrid and Ashe, who are chucking endless snowballs at them, “from the back.”

“Got it!” Leonie nods. She’s the first to leave, followed by Raphael. Lorenz looks at Claude hopelessly, like he’s wishing he could be excused to dry his clothes before a cold sets in, but finds he doesn’t have much of a choice when Leonie and Raphael simultaneously cart him off, Leonie dragging his right hand and Raphael the other. 

“Hilda, you’re with me.” Hilda stops complaining for a moment to give him an answering thumbs up. “Ignatz, find a vantage point and see if you can pick people off from there. Remember what I told you about using snow arrows?” At Ignatz’s confused nod, Claude takes a handful of them from his pocket - he’s never gone anywhere without them for the past week - and throws them his way; Ignatz snatches them from the air. “Marianne and Lysithea, the two of you are in charge of building us a fortress.”

Lysithea gains a determined look. “You can count on us!”

::

“I am Ferdinand von Aegir!” Ferdinand yells, a battle cry, before attacking with a barrage of snow (easily aimed with his makeshift spear made of a tree branch) to the nearing Blue Lions, approaching him with snow menacingly held in their hands. “I will not go down so easily! I will put up a fight - that’s what nobles do!”

His shriek, when Edelgard comes out of nowhere and drags him away just in time before Felix hits him with a face-sized snowball, is decidedly un-noblelike. 

“There you are,” Edelgard hisses, dragging him through the halls to where the Black Eagles have reconvened. Bernadetta cowers in the classroom, murmuring nothings about wishing she were back in her room, but everyone else looks expectant the moment Edelgard walks back in. “So: We were ambushed. I’m assuming.” At this, she gives all of them measuring looks. “Everyone wants to fight back.”

“I want to go back to my room,” Bernadetta offers timidly.

Edelgard sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She sighs, again, when she sees Linhardt already yawning at the back of their chosen classroom.

“Me! Lady Edelgard, I want to fight back! Me!!”

At least Caspar is excited.

::

By the end of the night, there is no clear winner: That is to say, everyone loses, and nobody wins - because it’s not like anyone can  _ die _ of little flecks of snow, thus making it difficult for them to count anyone out for casualties, as by the end of it, everyone is soaked to their core.

A stalemate, Claude calls it.

Edelgard had rolled her eyes and told everyone to go back to their rooms and take a bathe before the cold grows as a sickness.

Dimitri, for all he’d started their battle, shows a rare smile by the end of the night: His cheeks are red, nearly frost-bitten, and the fur of his coat is ruined beyond repair. 

But for once, he is content, and the ghosts do not whimper in his ears.

::

“So, ‘teach?” Claude wriggles his brows expectantly. In his hands, he holds an enlarged model of a carp. “What do you think?”

Byleth looks at Claude, first, assessing. Claude doesn’t wither under their glare, but his grin falls slightly when Byleth only looks at the carp with a blank stare, as opposed to the excitement he’d expected.

“That’s the model of a fish,” Byleth states.

“It is,” Claude answers, slowly, confused. “I got it as a Saint Indech’s Day gift for you!”

“My teacher,” Edelgard cuts in, smiling sweetly, “if I may interject, I bought a present for you, too.” Her present is a shield, ornately designed and masterly crafted. It glints with silver and something else - something no one can quite place - and when Byleth holds it in her their, it is light and steady. They try punching it, experimentally, and recoils their fist with a pained grimace. “I wouldn’t have done that, if I were you,” Edelgard supplies; she’d been too late to say that.

“I also prepared something for you, professor,” Dimitri says. His smile is shy and he hesitantly offers the box filled with sweets. “The Blue Lions all baked this together - Annette did most of the work, though,” he admits.

Byleth opens the lid of the box. The aroma of baked goods fill the room, and it takes all of Edelgard’s self control not to lunge for the box and take a bite out of one of the cookies for herself - that would be humiliating. 

“Thank you,” Byleth says this to all three of them. They wear a rare smile: It’s one that brings joy to each of the house leaders, knowing they’d put the smile on their professor’s face.

“Which present’s your favorite, ‘teach?” Claude asks. He effectively ruins their moment of shared peace. Edelgard’s eyes glint with interest, and even Dimitri listens more closely, forehead wrinkling.

Byleth is silent for a moment, contemplating their answer. They look at the fish; then the spear; and lastly, they take a cookie from the wrapped box, chewing on it for a while, thinking. Leaving Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri on the edge of their seats (and they’re standing!), waiting for their decision.

“The Blue Lions are good bakers,” Byleth says. They take another cookie, munching on it happily.

Dimitri tries to squash down his fight or flight instinct at the resultant, simultaneous glares from Claude and Edelgard.

::

“I commissioned the shield from the best blacksmith in Enbarr,” Edelgard complains. In a rare moment of truce and vulnerability, she’s sitting with Claude in the kitchens, looking absolutely defeated and miserable. Claude hesitantly pats her shoulder and is surprised when no Hubert appears from the shadows to slice off his hand.

Claude offers, “I went into town again to buy the fish model. I ended up bidding nearly fifty thousand gold for it.”

“ _ Fifty _ thousand gold?” Edelgard repeats. Her eyes are widened, in a way no noble’s should be when talking about throwing away their wealth like it’s nothing.

“Not one of my best moments,” Claude admits, cringing.

Dimitri puts down two cups of hot chocolate on their table before they can resume their commiserating. Claude takes his suspiciously, sniffing at it for any traces of poison; and of course, he does this with all his casual joke of grace, light-hearted enough for the motion to be passed off as jest. Edelgard glares at Dimitri with suspicion brewing in those violet eyes.

“A peace offering,” Dimitri says, looking at them hopefully. “I’ve never made hot chocolate before, but I think I got the measurements correct.”

“Well.” Claude takes a careful first sip. If Dimitri wanted to kill him, he rationalizes, he wouldn’t have done it in front of so many witnesses. “It’s not poison,” he says, once it has been several seconds since his first sip and he hasn’t dropped dead. 

The hot chocolate isn’t poisonous, but it isn’t the best either. Claude thinks it’s a little bland: Could use some more sugar, maybe a dash of milk, but Dimitri looks so hopeful even Claude feels reluctance in squashing his culinary venture.

Edelgard has no such qualms. “It’s a little too bitter,” she says, but takes another sip anyway. “But it’s not terrible.”

Coming from Edelgard in her current mood, that’s the highest compliment she could offer. 

“Thank you,” Edelgard says with great reluctance. Dimitri’s smile is small, a little hesitant around the edges, but it is real when he shows it to the both of them.

“Can we call a truce?” Dimitri asks. “Saint Indech’s day is over and it shan’t be long until spring comes. We’ll have no more snowballs to fight with.”

Claude hums. “I don’t know, I think I could be creative with dirt.” 

Dimitri gives him a look. “I’m joking!” Claude’s quick to correct, huffing to himself. “Geez, loosen up a little, would ‘ya?”

“A truce,” Edelgard says, her voice breaking past Dimitri and Claude’s back and forth, “sounds lovely. Only because the Black Eagles have already won, of course.”

“Um, the Black Eagles?” Claude sticks out his tongue. “It was totally the Golden Deer. We crushed you during yesterday’s battle.”

“Ah, but Claude,” Dimitri interjects, “the two of you must be forgetting which house planned the battle in the first place.”

They bicker and squabble, but the hot chocolate sits warmly in their stomachs - Claude’s and Edelgard’s, anyway - and, even if it is only for a day, everything is well. Their laughter and chatter brings the kitchen to life. Claude, not for the first time, wonders if this peace will last.

He hopes it will.


End file.
